69 f KRONOS QUARTET
A Thousand Thoughts Nonesuch 7559- 79557-3
There is a level of ambition to A Thousand Thoughts that is so high, yet so modest and personal. Above all else, it is a patchwork quilt. How or how quickly its colours and pat- terns resonate will depend on cultural condi- tioning, personal proclivities and propensities. Some (let’s call them) ‘squares’ may have pat- terns and colours that hook you straightaway: take their deconstruction of Blind Willie John- son’s Dark Was The Night (arr Stephen Prutsman), Getatchew Mekurya’s Aha Gèda- wo (arr Prutsman) and An Buachaillin Bàn (The Fair-haired Boy) (arr Tony MacMahon and Prutsman). Some are less swift to show off or reveal their possible meanings or magi- cal properties: take the Swedish traditional tune Tusen Tankar (arr Kronos, tr Ljova), the title of which gave the album its name and Terry Riley’s Bulgarian-inflected Cry Of A Lady (which feels, alas, like a compositional exer- cise with choir, Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares in this case). Some may leave you wondering how they fit into the jigsaw…
One pre-eminent aspect of this album that appeals strongly, without getting pon- cey, is its sonic palette. There is a moment in Mera Kuchh Saaman, the RD Burman compo- sition (on which Asha Bhosle sings), when David Harrington, the Kronos’ first violinist hits a sublime note. It floors. There is a simi- lar yet different violinistic moment in Omar Souleyman’s La Sidounak Sayyada. It is the individuality of their sound that great violin- ists make, that characteristic that expresses individuality more than originality. In a string quartet – other quartet formations may apply – it goes beyond the ‘first violinist’. It’s the group sound. It is to do with how, as A Thousand Thoughts shows, the ensemble wraps around them.
The Kronos Quartet is an ensemble with a global reach of reference. A Thousand Thoughts is not quite their Kronos Caravan for the next millennium. No matter how good musically, why include two antique pieces, Mera Kuchh Saaman (from You’ve Stolen My Heart) and Asleep (no matter how heart-stopping, from Astor Piazzolla’s Five Tango Sensations)? Perhaps I am uniquely qualified to ask that question. I worked on both releases and love both projects and composition to pieces. Caveat aside, A Thou- sand Thoughts is marvellous. Its music mes- merises. It’s boisterous, it’s serene and no other string quartet on the planet could have recorded it.
[Ken Hunt’s full feature about Kronos Quartet was in fR371…Ed.]
www.kronosquartet.org Ken Hunt
SHOW OF HANDS with JIM CARTER AND IMELDA STAUNTON
Centenary: Words and Music of the Great War Mighty Village
A major project, this, to mark the 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War. If anyone doubted whether there was anything left to say about this great historic catastro- phe, it goes a long way towards dispelling those suspicions.
It comes in two parts, the first CD devot- ed primarily to the poetry of the War, much of it – Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, for instance – grimly familiar. There is one track of particular ‘folkie’ interest, however, in I Have A Rendezvous With Death by Alan Seeger, uncle of Pete. Given Pete’s own recent death, that thought gives this reading a special poignancy.
DEM ENSEMBLE Erguvan Felmay fy 8211
This is a wonderful album. If you’re not famil- iar with the Ottoman tanbur – a long-necked, big-bellied, plucked lute – these twenty short pieces performed delicately and tastefully by Dem Ensemble may encourage you to seek out more of its stately sounds. The deep tan- bur stands out as the lead in this series of tra- ditional pieces from across Anatolia, but the colours created when the sustained sliding tones of the mid-range classical kemençe (knee fiddle) and bright breathy ney flute play in unison together with the tanbur – which when strummed also provides a rhyth- mic base – take you to you the heart of Ottoman art music. It’s slow and regal, per- fectly considered, evoking the famous 15th Century portrait of the powerful and tur- banned Sultan Mehmed II smelling a rose. Four taksim improvised introductions let you hear the fully range of delicious resonances
Kronos Quartet
The little wisps of music, played primarily by Messrs Knightley and Beer, are strictly there in a supporting capacity. That all changes on CD2, with not only Show Of Hands but also guests of the calibre of Jackie Oates, Jim Causley and Andy Cutting taking centre stage and doing some special things to songs from the period and some written by Knightley with the benefit of 100-year hind- sight and perspective.
Not all of it is downbeat, by any means. Some is almost jaunty, faithfully reflecting the brittle optimism as well as the horrors of war.
Strictly speaking, AE Houseman was a prewar poet, but his Lads In Their Hundreds fits so perfectly into the theme and mood of the album that it would be criminal to leave it out on that basis. Knightley’s arrangement of it – quite different from the one June Tabor sings on Quercus – is one of the high- lights of the collection. So is the treatment of It’s A Long Way To Tipperary with harmonica and beatbox. It might seem unlikely, even gimmicky, but listen closely and you can hear the shells exploding in no man’s land.
The track recorded live at the Shrews- bury Folk Festival, The Blue Cockade, is another gem, and the whole enterprise is car- ried off successfully. It could have been stale and formulaic, but this piece of work some- how adds to the picture we have in our heads of those years in the trenches.
www.showofhands.co.uk Dave Hadfield
produced by the tanbur; impeccable record- ing brings out the timbres and spaces between the instruments perfectly.
To the core trio of instruments Dem add
bag˘ lama, divan saz and cura – medium, long and tiny lutes respectively from the bag˘ lama family. These represent the folk traditions of Anatolia, so whilst the sleevenotes state that the album is dedicated to the historical music culture in Istanbul it really ranges much wider. The tunes selected originate mostly in Izmir and western Anatolia but extend to Elazig˘ in the east. This is the home town of renowned folk musician Erkan Og˘ur and a track is dedicated to him with his signature rippling cura style. But the marriage of folk and court music is effective. In fact the album feels like a single work. Sleevenotes try to give a pointer to each track but are disap- pointingly short and don’t elaborate, for example, on ‘zeybek culture’ (zeybeks were a kind of independent militia) from which sev- eral of the pieces are drawn.
Many of the tracks too are short, with some just over a minute. Better, at least at first, not to try and follow the factually dry notes but rather sit back and enjoy the tones, modes and moods languidly shifting ever so slightly over a unified whole. This is music conceived centuries before Miles Davis’ Birth Of The Cool but has certain affinities, and is perfect for a mellow Sunday morning, maybe after the night before with, dare I say, a nargile pipe and fumes of your choice.
www.felmay.it Sebastian Merrick
IMARHAN TIMBUKTU Akal Warled Clermont Music CLE 008CD
Imarhan Timbuktu are, according to the press release accompanying their new album Akal Warled, stalwarts of the desert blues and Mali’s Festival au Désert. Nevertheless, the band remain relatively unknown and, as far as I can tell, Akal Warled is their first full-on venture into the studio.
It’s always exciting to see new artists break onto the scene and shake up the well- practised Tuareg / desert blues sound, but, with excitement comes risk. For every Bombi- no, there are countless bands trying in vain to capitalise on a popular sound but in entirely ineffective ways.
Unfortunately, based on this album, it would seem Imarhan Timbuktu fall into the second category. If you’d never come across
Photo: Jay Blakesberg
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